As soon as they decided to go back in time, the old canon was gone. Everything was susceptible to change. Change for better, and change for worse. Ultimately what way you view it is your own opinion but if we are to face facts, we were warned long before CSZ's reveal that there was the chance a character who wasn't a cyborg before will be changed. We had plenty of time to accept that. I personally don't mind it, but I never was a huge fan of Sub-Zero. I loved his story from MK3, MK:DA-MK:D, and that was about it for me. His new form, if anything, actually impresses me though. I can hardly see Scorpion holding a grudge against a cyborg and I've long wanted to see that rivalry die a death.

A lot of my favourite characters changed too. Mileena went from being the spiteful, cunning clone of Kitana to a juvenile pair of tits with teeth. Kitana went from fighting for her home world against the man she assumed was her father, to having Liu Kang rescue her then ultimately die at the hands of her own mother. Shang Tsung had most of his guts removed completely when Quan Chi stole the "revive Sindel" approach and then got an even further bitchslap when Khan kills him. These are all classic characthers that changed. I may not agree with the changes, but I'd be demented not to accept them. They're there. I can't ignore that.

For Sub-Zero his new body will give him opportunities to evolve past his old story line. A story that I grew to like, dont get me wrong, but it's a story that's been done before. I'd actually quite like to see Sub-Zero truly wish to repent for ever being involved with the Lin Kuei/Shao Khan. I'd like to see him instead act as a lone wolf character, one who doesn't necessarily associate with the hero's of the game but assists them when necessary.
Really, everythings up in the air with all the characters, were not even guaranteed that Nightwolf, Kitana, Jade or any of the warriors in the Netherrealm will even come back. May as well roll with it and see what happens in this new story.

im not so sure about this, it could be simply for being the first fighting game with the biggest story mode. than again, to think that they didn't care about it seems unlikely. but after playing story mode i can't blame pp to think that way.

i don't know what to think of it, maybe they lack skill, maybe they don't give a shit maybe their perspective just changed.... bc i don't remember pp asking for these big changes they've made. well ill see next MK.

When I said "story guys" I meant the NRS guys in charge of the story. I thought the thread title and the following paragraph in that post of mine made that clear enough.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Ah, that makes sense. :P
And you're right, actually... We haven't really heard from the "story guys" of NRS since the game's release. No real explanation on why they took the steps and turns they did and such.

Even though I pretty much stopped caring for the story, I too would like to hear from them.

The bad thing is that the story mode got a lot of praise from the media (because no other fighter ever had anything like that) so it overshadowed the not so positive reaction from the MK fans. And I feel like I'm being too kind when I say "not so positive"...

Vogel tweeted that he saw PNF's youtube review of the story mode and wished he could respond to the criticisms, but doesn't have WB's permission. Working for such a big media company comes with a much tighter leash than Midway had, obviously. Notice how this is the first game in a long time we didn't have a Fight Night chat for?

So that's pretty much that.

Ever since self-proclaimed ones thought up the idea that there were any?




The problem is that the fnbase still thinks it has any right to decide what should or should not be done to it's sacred cow. To put it mildly, the only right you have is either to play or not to play.


Funny how people were foaming at Shredder-Zero back then...

Hey, I thought he meant the story guys of this forum, not the MK team. Forgive me for misunderstanding. No need to be a bitch about it.



This I pretty much agree with. Many fans think they hold power over the decisions made in a game, and it's not just for MK, it's all over the world. They think that because they are fans of a franchise, it is "their" franchise and thus think that their opinions matters while in fact it doesn't.

Game companies care about one thing - sales. If it sells well, they have done a good job making an entertaining game that people want. If storyline really was such a big problem, those with the problem wouldn't have bought the game. I mean, why order a beef if all you want is the potatoes.

The only moment where fans might have any power over the decisions made by the developers is when the developers seek out and directly asks for feedback. And even then the fans responding only hold very little power, if any, as in the end the decisions are made by the developers. We can only attempt to lead them in the direction we want. But because people want different things, the feedback they get is rather mixed, so NRS might be able to please some of the fans while another part of the fanbase leaves dissatisfied.

But you know what? Too bad. They can't please everyone, and as I said, they shouldn't try to either. No one can do that. There's no such thing as a perfect game, as perfection is in the eyes of the beholder and we all view things differently.

However, there will always be those people who think they know better and see themselves as better than others, who think they are more important and that their opinions matter when in fact, they don't. They are just opinions, nothing more, nothing less.

All of this hippie preachy bullshit about how "everyone's opinion is sacred" is really starting to get on my nerves.

Not all opinions are of equal value. I hope I don't have to explain why for the 25th time.


Also,it's been established numerous times that NRS does listen to their fanbase and are very much aware of its opinions. Hell,you'd probably be hard-pressed to find another development studio that's more in touch with their fans. There's probably someone from the team reading these fucking boards right now.

And if they are,they better be taking notes. Because I don't think there has been a single storyfag on here who didn't find several huge problems with this game's story. I don't mean minor nitpicks - I mean severe,crippling issues with the direction that the writing took.

NRS sure have shown that gameplay wise, then yes, they do listen to their fans. They have shown that and proved that, admittedly. But that's because they have asked for the feedback and went to tournaments to see how their game works when others handle it. I doubt it is because someone bitched about it on an unofficial fan site like this one.

But if you try and convince me that your opinion holds more value than mine, then forgive me for laughing. Unless you have proven anything to NRS that you are worth listening to, then your words are equal to anyone else's. And I doubt that you have.

We are just people on a forum discussing MK. There's nothing special about either of us.

I wouldn't say demented. We can accept that they're present, but I think it's more important that we're vocal about what we find unacceptable.

NRS are in no way obliged to bow down before our every demand, but time and again they've demonstrated that they do have their ear to the ground when it comes to what we do and don't want to see; trying to satisfy both sides of the Reptile fanbase by giving him a bipedal yet reptilian form in SM...most of this game's DLC characters are a response to of fan demand, appreciation, and longstanding rumor...and I personally feel like Smoke's evolution into the character he finally became, his own background, moveset, finishers and everything, is a response to the desires expressed by fans like myself and Temp over the long years for the character to evolve into his own man (original plot direction notwithstanding). The Johnny/Sonya angle just became such a staid part of the franchise, in the old Malibu comics and of course the movie, turned into something so oft-referenced, that it was only a matter of time before they gave it official acknowledgement to the degree they did here.

I'm personally of the belief that nothing's irretrievable. To me, there is no old or new canon, just two divergent timelines which feature some severe retcons, some of them awful, like Mileena's. While maybe we won't go back to the old timeline anytime soon, all it takes is a few lines of dialogue here or there to set one character's origin straight, e.g. 'Kitana came upon her twin, Mileena, in Shang Tsung's Flesh Pits and, looking at her surroundings, realized that the woman she had long thought to be her malformed sister was but one of a series of clones". You just ignore selective other details. Seriously, if the entirety of Shaolin Monks can be declared non-canon and stupid - to the point of mockery in this game - one character's not too much to adjust. It's sloppy, but I'd rather the old Mileena than the new. DC does stuff like this all the time, to varied results.

This game was way too popular to simply turn a blind eye to the plot. 2011 is and will be part of the ongoing saga. But things like Jade's ending (which, even if non-canon, introduces a mysterious Khameleon-looking lady who can and probably will be revisited) leave the door open for the old time frame to be returned to, or maybe merged with the new somehow.

They're out there, listening. Not waiting with bated breath or anything, but if we discuss and point out what we feel doesn't work without going nuts about it, I think there's a fair chance some things can be set to rights.


(Also: I feel 'Story Guys' is a fair label. There are a number of us devoted to the plot who go out of our way to discuss it.)

Other more glaring storyline aspects and situations have been fragmented and changed so many times I can't believe the elitist storyline crowd still gives a shit about this like it's gonna end the MK franchise as we know it. Exhausting energy on bullshit like this is why we ended up with garbage like MKD and MKA. focusing efforts in ALL the wrong areas much like the anti Cyber-Zero crowd.

The plot, which was the only redeeming part of the series during the years when the gameplay was shit terrible, is hardly a wrong area to focus attention on. It is possible to have a technically excellent fighter with a good plotline; there is nothing wrong with discussing its faults. It took years of demand and debate before gameplay was brought up to standards, there's no reason why we can't have a decent storyline again, too.

And honestly, we ended up with garbage games because Midway were having the staff basically crank out one game per year.

Oh dear..elitists..? Chill people.

There's nothing wrong with having stellar gameplay and great story as well, the total package. Why compromise for anything less?

Me and Espio[nage]872 don't care about whether we are the story guys or not, because... cus... we are the champions.

Keep in mind people that money thrives NRS into working in mysterious ways. Money is power. Power is knowledge. Knowledge is money. Money is power. Power is knowledge. Knowledge is money. Money is power. Power is knowledge. Knowledge is money. Money is power. Power is knowledge. Knowledge is money. Money is power. Power is knowledge. Knowledge is money. Money is power. Power is knowledge. Knowledge is money... Oh, I digressed.
Cybernetic Submission-Zero's existence shouldn't be thought as a backlash. Think it as a strength. In the historical timeline, Sub-Zero became this grandpa-0, during MK: Deadly Alliance, after embracing the dragon medallion and attending to the Extreme Makeover show - but this time he became this futuristic fridgerator with all the extra conveniences, even Smoke must like that.

Sub-Zero is one of the poster boys of Mortal Combating and his dramatic change indicates that we have gone to a new timeline and taken another step. You must see that something has changed in the 'iconic' characters too. Scorpion, um... got the chain (at least!).
This new timeline is massively connected to the old timeline. In an odd way, even MK/DC and MKSM are part of this all. According to RE701, this is all of The One Being's strange teenage dreamings. They don't make sense. All's just of The One Being's odd brain. Blame him!

Completely agree with everything written.


And completely agree with this.
Some self-proclaimed elitists sometimes are even more troublesome to the fanbase than some of the newcomers. Most of the bitching, complains and pathetic emo-bullshit comes from them. That's really tiresome and aggravating. Because most of the talks about game transforms into beating away "eleitists" who disagree and hate everything, mostly out of they blind devotion to their own views, which sometimes have nothing to do with reality.


And once agree.
All this talk about retcons is understandable on one hand, but hating new story to the point of quiting series and tirelessly complaining about it, especially after MKA and MK/DC debacles, is certainly behaviour not out of this world.

As long as Kuai Liang is still the ass kicking hero he always was in the past, I don't give a shit if he's a llama.

This is still all SO ridiculous. For those old enough to remember, there was a HUGE backlash when MK3 was announced and we learned that....gasp....Sub-Zero would have no mask! Even more sacriligious was that there would be cyborgs! You know like Cyrax and Sektor, and we all know how unpopular they turned out, oh wait they turned into fan favorites.

Before anyone says "Yeah but technically we got the old ninjas back anyway...." I would say as we did in this case too. Cyborgs and human ninjas coexisting in the same game. The only downside I can see to any of this is that we didn't get an MK9 version of Cyber Smoke, but we did a completely new character, so it kinda even outs.

As for story, yeah I like the story as much as the next guy. I've played Story Mode twice, I've played VS. Mode a couple thousand times more though. I'm no expert here but I think a majority of people who bought this game probably have a similar ratio of Single Player Story Mode to VS. Mode against other people. Again, not an expert, so I can't say for sure.

I'm just happy that since we're out of the MK1-MK3 timeline and MK4 is kind of a clean slate with not much to it already...that these canon v.s. retcon issues don't have the chance to crop up in the future and we can perhaps enjoy the story modes more and hopefully we can be done with the go back in time shenanigans, let us move on finally.


As for them keeping CSZ....they got rid of Cyber Smoke, essentially removing him from existence in this canon, a character with almost a decade long fan following and a three game history spanning from the 2D era all the way to the 3D era. CSZ's presence is as tenuous as Cyber Smoke, if not more so based on the circumstances and this isn't even hating on the character, it's just the more I think about it, kind of interesting to compare the situations of the two characters. Sub-Zero's also dead, which essentially boils down to them having a great deal of options...they can keep him Cyber, they can revert him to human form, they can make him a hybrid, the possibilities are endless.

I absolutely hate cyber subz. I will also say this has been discussed to death too though.

Here's my thoughts on it again anyway though. Cyber Subz is number 20-21 in terms of popularity on the official site while Sub-Zero is number 3 on the official site so in terms of popularity it can clearly be seen that Sub-Zero as a human is more popular even if people want to deny it they can't cuz it's there.

Mix that with the fact that Cyber Subz dies in storymode. Then, mix that with the fact that you know they have got all sorts of tweets about hating cyber subz, dare I say probably even hatemail (just speculation though). Mix that with the fact that Cyber Subz moveset is just a mix of other characters. Then mix all of that with Hector saying in pre interviews that they weren't even sure that cyber sub-zero would return. Mix that with Cyber Subz ending that also says he dies and becomes Shao Kahn??? I'll say that Cyber subz is at best up in the air.

No offense, but all of these people saying he signifies change, well I feel that he was more or less a plot device to see if they would actually go through with it. They did... we've seen it now... bad idea, and they probably know that at this point. So hopefully by next game Kuai Liang will be back as fully human and we can see him take a different path from the old timeline and Gasp... do so as a human. I feel like people think he couldn't have taken a different path as a human. Personally my hope is that he goes after Raiden once he's revived because he finds out if it weren't for Raiden's visions he never would have ended up a cyborg in the first place. Different and also makes him more of a neutral character which seems to be what some people want (Not my personal preference though).

Also it won't take a lot of explaining of how he became human again either. Everyone acts like it will take a storybook to turn him back but it won't.

Here.

1.Sareena sneaks him into Quan Chi's chambers to revive him.

2. The warriors are revived to their normal HUMAN states. Even more plausible.

It really doesn't take a whole lot of explaining, and I feel the people who complain about him not being cyber anymore will be weeded out by the droves of people who are glad to never ever have to see a cyber sub-zero argument again and cyber sub-zero as a whole quite frankly.

Also, NRS here's a note to you. If you want to pay attention to cyborgs do so with one you already have. I mean we all know Sektor is an evil Ahole hellbent on ruling the world or something of the sort so he can't really be delved into much deeper. HOWEVER, saying that, Cyrax is almost a complete open book who they have never ever really got a straight coherent story running for him that made sense. I mean was I the only one shocked when he joined Sonya and the special forces in DA? It just kind of seemed out of nowhere. Then the crap with Nitara and reviving the dragon king? Now, in this game he seems to be going the shaolin monk route???

You have a cyborg you can do something with, just use him right. The same with a lot of characters really.

This is somewhat the point I was making, but from yet another perspective. People are SO quick to launch the hate bombs at things that are different. Smoke/Cyber-Smoke is a perfect example. Again I'm sure most people here were too young to remember what a BBS was, but the hate for Cyber-Smoke was incredible back then. Clearly people wanted the mysterious and cool human Smoke they never got to play as for MK3. Now here we are many years later and that once hated character is now the #1 most wanted in this version of the game even though he was hated back then, and he doesn't even fit into the story now. Doesn't matter, the hate has turned to love just like that. I predict a similar fate for Cyber Sub Zero over the course of the next few installments if he suddenly disappears from the roster.

Not really even close to the point that I was personally making....just saying


@Zmoke you are so zany, I love it.

I honestly doubt they'd take a character, one who has in some way shape or form been in the franchise from the very begining and even had his own spin off game, and decide on a whim to transform him into a cyborg just to test the waters. You don't fuck with classic fighters like Sub-Zero or Scorpion with fanbases as large as theirs and do it just to see how the fans react. He's got a legacy, millions of fans out there. NRS might have been a bit botched with their marketing for this game but they're not that stupid.

Face it, they decided to make an iconic character into something different. Why is that such a big deal? You'd swear they aborted a child in front of you the way some people react at his presence. Scorpion's only ever deviated from his "REVENGE!" road once, in Deception when he served the Elder Gods, and in the near twenty years we've had that character he's constantly suffered from the rehashed "revenge/sub-zero/quan chi" bullshit storyline just because fans would cry like bitches if anything else ever happened to him. Fans dont own the characters, NRS does, and the last time NRS tried to mould the characters to suit the fanbase we ended up with that many loose ends and repetitive stories that they decided to kill them all off in Armageddon.

If anything I hope NRS realise with this version of MK that the Story is entirely in their own hands, and that while fan influence is important it doesnt rule the series. I'll always love MK for it's story regardless how much it contradicts itself, ideally I'd love to see them bring *minor* parts of the old canon back as prologue info for some characters (like Mileena being Kitana's assumed sister prior to finding her in the Flesh Pits) but ultimately whatever direction they take I'll support fully.

They did abort a child in front of me and that child's name was sub-zero's old storyline.lol.

Just playing. For real though. I think the point most people miss is this. You are completely right that Scorpion's storyline was all about revenge for the most part. Even up to Armageddon, so any change he get's in this new storyline will be welcomed. However, you can ask many people who had the best individual story in the old timeline and many will reply Sub-Zero(Kuai Liang). Even though he had little to do with the main plot he had such a grand story of redemption and heroism in the old story that it is admittedly hard for us as fans who have watched that story for 10 plus years to just up and say, because of one game, that all of that is gone. Especially when it's such a drastic one, and one that goes against everything that most of his fans like about him in the old storyline. In ways Cyber Sub-Zero is anti Sub-Zero. He was turned into a cyborg and made a slave, and old sub-zero refused to do so by any means.

It's hard for us to see that honestly as fans of his. However, also read other things that you said. He has such a huge fanbase, probably second only to Scorpion and I, honestly, don't think they will keep him like this forever. I don't think I'm mental for thinking that either. To me, it was more or less a nod to what could have happened the other way around and with this story it was the perfect chance to do it. I still prefer cyber smoke though, and will always see Sub-Zero as the one who rose above his circumstances. It's hard for someone to rise above anything when they look at themselves in the mirror and see a shell of their former self. Also, just look at the points I made in my last post on cyber sub of why exactly I think he was more or less an experiment instead of changing a character forever.

Also in a way fans do own the characters. Because if it wasn't for fans those characters might not be anything but sketches on a piece of paper today. So, it's okay for us to voice our opinion on Sub-Zero. It was a mistake, the way I see it lesson learned on their part. I just feel that NRS makes so many useless mistakes in regard to storyline. Can they really act like zombie liu kang was a good idea? Should have left him dead.